Secretary of the Food and Nutrition Security Secretariat Juan Carlos Carías participated in the meeting for the Joint Evaluation of the actions of the multi-stakeholder Platform of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement -SUN- 2019.

The secretary of SESAN said: <>‘We want to thank the secretariat of the SUN Movement for its unconditional support and liaison. We also want to thank all of you for your participation. We are sure that with your professionalism, ethics and objectivity, we will be able to analyse this situation, the background and opportunities, looking at what has worked and what has not, to change our course if necessary, knowing that what we do today must have an impact on our population and especially on children, and with the conviction that we can improve their situation’.

The meeting was attended by Francisca Gómez, policy specialist at the Secretariat of the SUN Movement, as its representative, and Susana Rafalli, MQSUN+ consultant.

’This is a process of celebrating the progress made last year, but also of identifying priorities for next year, to see what the country’s focus on Food and Nutrition Security will be’, said Gomez.

The SUN Movement’s representative referred to the country’s advances: ’in Guatemala we have seen great progress since last year’s joint evaluation, we have more participants this year, we have a new stakeholder in form of the academia and research sector, advances in high-level advocacy processes, coordination, funding and alignment of priorities, while work on operationalisation and implementation continues, to focus efforts on the development of platforms at sub-national, regional and municipal levels’.

Different sectors involved in the multisectoral and multi-stakeholder platform participated in the activity: civil society; business; the United Nations; Donors; and the academia and research sector.

Attendees gathered in sector-specific working groups to complete an online questionnaire and discuss the content of their section, in order to subsequently present their results and achieve consensus and validation as a multisectoral and multi-stakeholder platform at national level.

The Joint Evaluation looks at nutrition coordination issues, according to the SUN Movement’s Theory of Change, which seeks to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in four processes: bringing together stakeholders in a shared action space; ensuring a coherent policy and legal framework; aligning actions around a common results framework; monitoring finances and mobilising resources.

The online format of the joint online evaluation has several benefits, such as:

Monitoring progress over the years, as well as priorities at national and sub-national levels;

Allowing time for reflection, as it can be added to as many times as necessary;

Facilitates a direct line to the Secretariat of the SUN Movement and the possibility of sending messages with queries or comments between members of the movement and between other countries;

Allowing information to be added, modified and analysed in the different stages.

The priorities that the country identified in the previous Joint Evaluation and on which progress has been made include:

Organising a high-level event focused on nutrition alongside the Ibero-American summit, given the visit of the SUN Movement Coordinator to Guatemala;

Improving multi-stakeholder platform integration;

Taking advantage of the visit by the SUN Movement Secretariat to boost high-level political commitment to nutrition;

Supporting efforts to evaluate the processes of implementation of the National Strategy for the Prevention of Chronic Malnutrition -ENPDC-

Continuing to strengthen the bodies of the National System for Food and Nutrition Security -SINASAN-;

Evaluating the design of the National Food and Nutrition Security Policy with the support of the Secretariat;

Carrying out a study of the multisectoral and multi-stakeholder platform, developing a report and practical tools.